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POLITICO 44

POLITICO's Arena contributors ask: When it comes to executive power, is Obama different from Bush?

Ross Baker, professor, Rutgers

“The trend toward greater executive power may have been accelerated by [George W.] Bush, but it is a secular trend in the relations between the branches of government that goes back to the New Deal. It was further reinforced by World War II, Korea, the Cold War and Vietnam. It got a big push by Sept. 11 and aggressive interpretations of executive power by Bush and [Dick] Cheney. It is no more surprising that [President Barack] Obama has retained many of the Bush-era security measures than that [Presidents] Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan did not attempt to dismantle the New Deal agencies.”

Cesar Conda, GOP strategist; former Cheney aide

“After years of complaints from Democrats about Bush and Cheney’s effort to restore executive branch power (which had been greatly diminished in the wake of the Watergate scandal), it is ironic that a Democratic president is reaping the fruits of their labor.”

Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform

“Is Obama worse than Bush in accumulating power in the White House, trampling federalism with the hobnailed boots of the central government, governing as if his secret desires had been ratified by the electorate — when the people voted for a candidate who said the opposite — and committing future generations to hundreds of billions [of dollars] in additional federal spending?”

“Obama is not much different from Bush, and Bush was not that much different from [Bill] Clinton, and we can trace the expansion of presidential authority back to roughly Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. FDR’s presidency marks the beginning of the ‘modern presidency.’ Up until then, there was a great deference to Congress. The rules of the game were set up so that presidential selection was based on congressional leaders — through the Electoral College and the lack of a primary system until the turn of the 19th century.

“It is shortsighted to make such a narrow comparison between Bush and Obama. There is a much larger historical context to consider in addition to an appreciation for path dependency — that the formal and informal rules Obama is employing were set into motion before his arrival and not that he is simply taking a page out of Bush’s playbook. The early institutional incentives of this country produced what came to be known as the King Caucus, where congressional, not presidential, authority was expansive. Congress ran the show up until FDR, with the exception of Andrew Jackson, who temporarily bucked the King Caucus and went straight to the public. He was able to win and harness the support of the public, hence allowing for the expansion of presidential authority. Jackson foreshadowed Roosevelt and ultimately laid the groundwork for the czars and other demonstrations of presidential power we see today.”